Joseph Blake (governor)
11th governor of colonial South Carolina

Joseph Blake (died 1700), the son of Vice Admiral Benjamin Blake and nephew of English General at Sea Robert Blake, served as the governor of Carolina in 1694 and from 1696 to his death in 1700.
Biography
Joseph Blake was born in 1663, in England. He was the son of Vice Admiral Benjamin Blake and nephew of Lord Proprietor, John Archdale. To early 1680s, he emigrated to Carolina. In 1685, Joseph Blake was appointed a Deputy by his Archdale. During a time, he was member of the Executive Councils. Late, he was named as a Deputy of Peter Colleton, 2nd Baronet. On 29 October 1694, he was appointed governor of colonial South Carolina by the council, and he kept the charge until his death, on 7 September 1700.
Blake married two times: The first of them was with Deborah Morton, who was daughter of Governor Joseph Morton, marrying with him before 1685. The second was Elizabeth Axtell, who had a son, Joseph Blake Jr.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph Blake (governor)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.